Ukraine battles to contain Russian advances across the front
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces over the weekend pushed into Urozhaine, a southern village won back by Ukraine last summer, the latest in a series of slow but steady advances that are reversing hard-won Ukrainian victories.
The Russian advances are a sobering development for Kyiv as its troops battle to contain attacks along a more than 600-mile front line.
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In the east, Moscow’s troops are also pressing forward. They have entered the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian stronghold in the region, and are closing in on a key Ukrainian supply route.
Ukraine hopes that weapons and ammunition recently supplied by Western allies will help it hold back Russian forces. That has already happened in the northeast, where beefed up Ukrainian defenses have managed to halt a Russian offensive that threatened Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. U.S. officials said last week that Russia was unlikely to make significant territorial gains in the coming months.
As the war reaches the 2 1/2-year mark, Ukraine is pursuing a plan for a negotiated end to the fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that he wanted to hold a second international peace summit later this year and that Russian officials should attend. Moscow was not invited to the previous summit, held in Switzerland last month.
Here’s a closer look at the situation on the battlefield.
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RUSSIA APPEARS TO HAVE RETAKEN UROZHAINE
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that its soldiers had seized Urozhaine, a small village in southeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military made no comment but maps of the battlefield compiled by analysts from combat footage also showed Urozhaine under Russian control, including a map by DeepState, a group with close ties to the Ukrainian army.
Russian forces “occupied Urozhaine,” DeepState said Sunday, describing the loss as a “defense collapse.” Pasi Paroinen, from the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes imagery from the Ukrainian battlefield, also confirmed the loss.
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